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News

200,000 pro-lifers march in Washington, D.C. at the 37th annual March for Life

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First, we begin with the lovely pro-life ladies. Beautiful!

(Click for larger images)

More photos here, courtesy the Washington Times. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

And even MORE photos here from Newsbusters.

The Washington Times has the story.

Excerpt:

Hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers protested the 37th anniversary of legalized abortion Friday, buoyed by polls and a recent Republican victory in Massachusetts that they said show public opinion may be finally swinging in their favor.

[…]Organizers estimated the crowd at the March for Life to number at least 200,000. A “virtual” march on Washington, hosted by Americans United for Life at http://www.virtualmarchforlife.com, attracted 74,925 “avatars” by late Friday afternoon. The March for Life marks the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

After two hours of speeches from a variety of political and religious leaders, the mostly college-aged crowd marched up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court under hazy skies in 45-degree weather.

Twenty-one members of Congress each took the podium to celebrate the current woes surrounding the Senate version of President Obama’s health care bill, which opponents say would expand federally subsidized abortion. Due to the surprise election Tuesday of Massachusetts state Sen. Scott Brown to the late Edward M. Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, Democrats are now one vote shy of the supermajority needed to overcome Republican filibusters.

“The health care bill is dead,” said Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, an oncologist who last month switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. “They may be able to break off a piece or two but it was fundamentally bad.”

“There’s been a huge turn in the country,” said Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican. “Huge majorities are in our favor especially on funding of abortion. A lot of members of Congress have realized that the numbers have shifted.”

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Spokane, Wash., spoke to the crowd with her 2-year-old son, Cole, draped across her shoulder. Saying the little boy has Down Syndrome, “We get to press the restart button and get the health bill we want,” she said.

Speaking of Republicans, Neil Simpson had a nice comparison of how Republicans and Democrats compare on the issue of abortion. What have they done for the pro-life movement lately?

Congressman Mike Pence

Representative Mike Pence had a nice op-ed on his web site about the pro-life issue. He first reviews everything that Obama is doing to increase the number of abortions that have occured in the United States (50 million since Roe v. Wade), but then he switches to a diffferent line of argument.

Excerpt:

William Wilberforce, a central figure in the fight to end the slave trade in Great Britain, understood that to win a moral victory he needed to persuade the hearts and minds of the people, as well as end public policies that supported the objectionable trade. Wilberforce defeated the slave trade by bringing an end to the financial gains it enjoyed.

If we are going to end abortion we must bring an end to abortion profiteering. And we cannot end abortion in this country so long as the American taxpayer is forced to be the largest financial supporter of abortion.

Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, performed more than 305,000 abortions in 2007. That same year, Planned Parenthood received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, either through federal, state or local assistance. This is unacceptable. Now is the time to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

To that end, I will continue to introduce legislation in Congress that will restrict any federal family planning funds from going to organizations like Planned Parenthood that promote or perform abortions. I will seize every opportunity to bring this proposal before Congress until the people’s House respects the will of the American people and ends taxpayer subsidized abortion.

William Wilberforce committed his life to a cause that would “extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic” in human life and said that “posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country.”

A noble plan, but so far the Democrats keep voting him down. I like his plan because you often hear from some people that we need to transfer more wealth to women who want to become single mothers. But extra-marital sex and single motherhood is not good for children, either. Instead, we need to stop government from subsidizing irresponsible sexual activity. That’s my personal view, anyway. I’m chaste, and one the secondary reasons why I am chaste is so that I do not hurt women or children.

I think that cutting subsidies for Planned Parethood and making women pay every penny for their abortions may cause them to think twice. It also may be a good idea to pass a 300% sales tax on abortions and to force the father to pay for half of the abortion, too. That would get parents involved, for sure. If there’s no more money in it for Planned Parenthood, and no political contributions from Planned Parenthood for the Democrats, then abortion would stop pretty fast.

You can see Mike Pence’s speech here:

I must note that Mike Pence is an evangelical Protestant Christian, as am I, and as is William Wilberforce. But evangelical Protestant Christians are not the only ones who are pro-life.

Check out this quote from the Washington Times article I linked to above:

Three Orthodox Jewish rabbis came on stage to blow a shofar — a ram’s horn used to welcome in the Jewish New Year — and encourage listeners to have more children.

“The selfish liberals are not reproducing,” Brooklyn Rabbi Yehuda Levin said. “We Orthodox Jews are bringing in 7-14 children into a family. You too can have a holy baby.”

Speaking of the nation’s governors, “We have enough killing pharaohs in power,” he said. “Who’ll be the Moses to let our babies grow?”

It’s like everybody is pro-life except for Obama and the Democrats on the secular left. (See Is Obama a pro-life or pro-abortion President?).

What does Obama think about abortion?

President Obama’s statement on Supreme Court’s historic abortion decision. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Today we recognize the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which affirms every woman’s fundamental constitutional right to choose whether to have an abortion, as well as each American’s right to privacy from government intrusion.  I have, and continue to, support these constitutional rights.

I also remain committed to working with people of good will to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and families, and strengthen the adoption system.

Today and every day, we must strive to ensure that all women have limitless opportunities to fulfill their dreams.

Muddling paraphrases Obama’s statement:

When a baby is detected growing in a mother’s womb, a mother is confronted with a serious choice of whether or not to kill her baby.  Uppermost in a mother’s consideration must be the high probability that a child will limit her opportunities to fulfill her dreams.  That being the case, it is perfectly acceptable to torture and kill the child via a variety of currently employed methods. Priorities are priorities.

I think we as Christians need to make sure that we vote to protect innocent children from violence, although that is NOT what many of us did in the 2008 election by voting for Obama. Please talk to your neighbors about abortion. (See links at the bottom of this post to learn how). By the way, Neil Simpson has a nice post up about whether the Bible supports abortion.

The mainstream media response

The mainstream media are apparently so clueless that they not only do not cover the event, but some of the feminists apparently think that this is a pro-abortion event. Newsbusters notes that CNN’s Rick Sanchez is not able to tell whether the March for LIFE is a pro-life or pro-abortion event. The American Spectator explains how Newsweek also seems to think it is a pro-abortion event. (H/T Nice Deb)

Related posts

News

Round-up of news from around the world

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Honduras protesters continue to bash Obama and CNN
Pro-freedom protesters in Honduras defy Obama and CNN

So much foreign policy news!

Iraq

Jason over at The Western Experience has a number of good stories up.

He writes that Iraq is struggling to find foreign investors for its oil fields.

Excerpt:

…the Iraqi government has to decide on how to lure foreign investors and oil firms to setup shop in the many rich oil fields. With modern development, industry and organization Iraq could be a major producer and, potentially, one of the major countries in the world in just a few decades. So far, things haven’t exactly happened in the order many experts and investors hoped. The hang up is, of course, price per barrel. Companies were asking too much for operating in the country in the eyes of the government. Still, others were willing to operate at  loss just to get a foothold in the new market.

It’s funny, because if our war in Iraq were really a war for oil, why is Iraq taking offers to see who will be drilling for all that oil? (The offers are also coming from China, Russia and India, not just the USA)

Egypt

Robert Spenser of Jihad Watch links to this Assist News article about the state of Christian liberty in Egypt.

Excerpt:

Since early 2007 the Egyptian government has been appeasing Muslim fundamentalists by settling matters of sectarian conflict out of court in line with Islamic Sharia law. That prohibits Christians from bringing evidence against Muslims. The government brokers ‘reconciliation’ sessions where the Christians are forced to drop all the charges they are making (arson, looting, assault, kidnap, robbery, criminal damage, rioting, torture, rape, murder) in exchange for Muslim guarantees of ‘peace’.

…Not only is violence against Christian individuals, churches and communities escalating dangerously, but the courts are increasingly subordinating the Constitution to Sharia law. Notably, the courts are refusing to allow Muslims the right to convert. The consequences of this are huge. A woman who is officially registered as a Muslim must by law marry a Muslim and the children of a man officially registered as a Muslim are automatically deemed Muslim by the State. The few who have courageously challenged this have been forced into hiding to preserve their lives.

Please pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in other countries.

Sri Lanka, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, etc.

Wow! Michael Totten has a super-long interview with Robert Kaplan, a moderate who writes about the U.S. military and global conflicts in the most far-flung places in the world.

Excerpts:

Kaplan: …The Tamil Tigers had human shields by the tens of thousands, not just by the dozens and hundreds like Al Qaeda. They put people between themselves and the government and say “you have to kill all the people to get to us.” So the government obliged them. The government killed thousands of civilians.

Kaplan: …The Sri Lankan government was elected in 2005 to win the war. And it has done that. Extremely brutally. It’s a government that’s very nationalist Sinhalese Buddhist. These are not the Richard Gere’s “peace and love” Buddhists. These are the real blood and soil Buddhists, where Buddhism is like any other religion when it’s threatened and it’s defending a piece of territory. It can be very brutal.

Wow, this thing was really messy. You have suicide bombing terrorists with human shields on the one side, and a journalist-killing authoritarian government on the other side. There were no good guys. What a mess. These militant Buddhists remind me of the militant nationalist Hindus I talked about before.

And here is a guest post about Russia and Georgia.

Honduras timeline

Here is a pretty useful timeline of events from Atlas Shrugs for the current democratic crisis in Honduras. This article really emphasizes the socialist policies of the wanna-be dictator. The person who provided it is an American investor living in Honduras.

Excerpt:

I have been disgusted at the world reaction to these events. It’s like they only looked at what happened on Sunday morning and ignored what events led to that day. I don’t understand how the removal of Zelaya was anything less than a small country demanding that their country remain democratic. Their constitutional process worked exactly right to remove a rogue president with an agenda that was detrimental to the Honduran constitution and society. While the actions o f June 28 would fit some definitions of a coup, it was certainly a legal and CONSTITUTIONAL coup. There have been several articles written that state that it was a MANDATORY coup. That’s a very difficult concept for most people from the first world to understand, but there are some coups that are good and even required.

I hope that Honduras can bear up under the economic sanctions they are likely to face – and no help from Obama, either. He seems to prefer Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

News

Obama restores diplomatic ties with Venezuela and Syria

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Venezuela

The extremely left-wing Al-Jazeera reports that Obama intends to reinstate diplomatic relations with Venezuela. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

The United States and Venezuela are to reinstate ambassadors to Caracas and Washington, setting aside a diplomatic spat that soured ties last year.

The two nations expelled each other’s envoys last September in a dispute involving allegations by Bolivia, a close ally of Venezuela, that Washington was meddling in its internal affairs.

The normalisation of diplomatic ties “will take place in the coming days, and as soon as the ambassadors have resumed their functions we will move forward to a more fluid communication,” Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan foreign minister, said on Wednesday.

Venezuela is a well-known sponsor of terrorism in neighboring Colombia, as well as a communist nation, with all the standard losses of liberty and prosperity that entails.

Syria

Syria is a puppet of Iran and a supporter of Hezbollah, which menaces Israel from the north with terrorist attacks. George W. Bush withdrew the last ambassador after it came out that Syria was involved in the assassination of Rafik Hariri in Lebanon. But Obama thinks it’s a good idea to re-instate relations with them, as well.

The extremely left-wing Associated Press reports:

President Barack Obama plans to return an ambassador to Syria, filling a post that has been vacant for four years and marking an acceleration of Washington’s engagement with the Arab world, the White House said on Wednesday.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama’s decision was aimed at fulfilling his promise to show more U.S. engagement in the Arab world and not a response to any explicit policy change on Syria’s part.

He cited a series of meetings between Syrian and U.S. officials since Obama took office.

“This strongly reflects the administration’s recognition of the role Syria plays, and the hope of the role that the Syrian government can play constructively, to promote peace and stability in the region,” Gibbs said.

Obama wants to dialogue with ruthless, murdering dictators – the kind of people the left regards as good.

What it means

Briefly, when the US is seen as consorting with terrorist-supporting regimes, it is a blow to all the freedom-loving people in the world. Instead of supporting those who are imprisoned, beaten, tortured and murdered by the dictators, Obama is supporting the dictators, by giving their terrorist-supporting regimes legitimacy in the eyes of the public, and discouraging pro-democracy movements.